Readers' comments

S.Isak,Google has performance issues with its apps, and it is clearly trying (or toying) with the fantasy of inflicting financial harm on Microsoft by "giving away" a basic MS Office alternative, and leveraging it massive market share in search so as to maximize the number of people who receive the free alternative to MS Office. I regard this strategy as having little business merit and here is one reason:The stickiness of a user's search behavior (loyalty) is not materially enhanced by being the one providing the user's "office suite". It if were, Microsoft would already own search, right?But what is and has been dangerously "enhanced" by what has all the appearance of an ego- and hubris- driven strategy by Google, is the degree of vicious competitive obsession at Microsoft to come at Google with guns ablaze.Too often people whose prior experiences are solely or primarily in academia seem to act as if all they need to do is show that they are "the smartest kid in the class" and they win. What this ignores is something they likely don't have in the Stanford Comp Sci department -- the business equivalent of schoolyard bullies who like to crush competitors' skulls if they can just figure out how to do it. Microsoft does observably score very high in the schoolyard bully department.What I find mind boggling about Google's taunting behavior is they appear to think that Microsoft will never figure out a way to leverage Microsoft's own high-switching-cost customer bases (basically OS customers and MS Office customers) in such a fashion as to reciprocate the cut-air-supply maneuver against Google. I know how I would do it, and the results for Google would not be pretty. It is not hard to figure out a business model in Google's space which would be highly "disruptive" to use a popular term among technology investors.But more to the point, it does not serve the very creative worldwide Internet and PC software industries to have another Microsoft act-alike in the form of Google. What this means is that every great new idea for a horizontal (wide-market-appealing) web or PC based product/service becomes vastly less interesting for the entrepreneur and prospective investors to ever give birth to. Why? Because it becomes clear to all investors and entrepreneurs what will happen as soon as they launch thta great new product/service: that the innovator will be ripped off by the new Microsoft (Google) via the "clone and extend" model of copying the basic innovation and adding it to their service line "for free". Which means that the innovator will have his air supply cut off just like Microsoft did to Netscape.Google is not nearly as smart as the share holdings (at market) of their founders might imply. Sorry if that seems unkind, but there have been many real, live tests of Google's smarts within its own business, and they are not evidenced to be at the same lofty "percentiles" as are their founders' share accounts. They would be unwise confuse wealth with business acumen -- that's how Donald Trump wound up thinking he should own and run the New York (Trump) shuttle. Not.Also, it is clear that Google is not a skilled practitioner of bone-breaking bullying tricks. They appear to be more of the skinny smart kid sticking his tongue out at the bully. But they are not assessing their own downside correctly in my view.As for the technical need for Chrome, the Google Docs alternative is written in a language which runs in a browser, which in turn, is an application which runs as a native app on the client machine. Google needs to code closer to the processor of that client machine to get more performance out of its apps, and by controlling Chrome, they can implement Java and other interpreted resources with much better efficiency. It is the "logical" thing to do to get more performance out of Google Docs. You are correct that the first version of Chrome is "nowhere near replacing [any] but the most simple OS". However the first versions of MS Windows and "EXCEL" were also nowhere near to replacing what was then available from Apple's Mac or Lotus' 123. But they didn't have to be when the company pushing them controlled the ubiquitous underlying MS DOS. Google is trying to copy the ubiquity-leveraging strategy.But it is not a perfect analogy. And the risk that the well-practiced schoolyard bully will soon figure out how to bring Google to its knees is growing by the day.

While I agree with many of the points you bring up, I dissagree with your technical assessment of Google's Chrome, as well as the extent to which it constitutes an attack against Microsoft. If you call Chrome OS-Like, then you are then forced to call Microsoft's own browser, IE8 "OS-Like". Google's browser is merely one of two multi-threaded (As far as tabs are concerned) browsers now available (the other being Microsoft's own Internet Explorer).

As I see it, what Chrome does for Google is speed up websites utilizing Javascript (Web 2.0) which DOES make their on-line application suite more competitive against Microsoft's (and this is where I agree with you!). I do not think this is a "game-changing" release, however, and it certainly does not threaten Windows in any way. In fact, Chrome is only available for Windows at this time! Additionally, Chrome (as well as all other browsers) lack the capabiliites neccessary for truly advanced applications via the web, such as multi-threaded applications (while Chrome itself is multi-threaded, it's rendered websites are NOT) and direct access to hardware.

All this adds up to is a really stable browser (due to tab independence) with efficient memory utilization with a very fast javascript engine (which is always welcome).

If the rumors about Mozilla having a faster Javascript engine in the works are true, and the Mozilla is able to implement their browser in a similiarly multi-threaded and multi-processed manner, it will be a superior browser, one that has been eating into Microsoft's IE browser market-share for years.

Google Chrome is nowhere near replacing all but the most simple OS, and even then only as the UI front-end. That being said, Chrome is the perfect example of what type of browser Google wants people to be running in the future. Fast, stable, and capable of running their on-line applications accurately. That being said, with the exception of their search and map software, all their other offerings fall far behind Microsoft's -- and I don't see them catching up anytime soon.

S.Isak,Google's Chrome browser is designed to be an OS-like container which Google can optimize in such a way as to materially improve the performance of its "Google Docs" spreadsheet and wordprocessor. These tools, in their first versions, performed very poorly, and slowly, and are still not nearly up to the task of displacing MS Office. However, by Google executing a low-end flanking action against Microsoft, meaning that it gets Google Docs in front of students and new users of computers, and does so prior to them encountering MS Office, Google can gradually drive a wedge into the "office suite" market.This "idea" is clearly very tempting to Google. But the idea of doing an MS Office-Killer is very bad idea, no matter how tempting, due to its predictable effect of causing Microsoft to obsess endlessly on what they should do as a counter-move.Google is successful in search, but it would be unwise for Google to therefore declare itself the world's unsurpassed genius in all things related to the web and PCs. Let's look at the evidence of Google's genius: Google was built based on two innovations, a very basic innovation in search, and a much more important innovation in terms of the ad-implementation and revenue model.The search idea was simple: rank sites based on how many other sites link to them. Kind of like ranking books based on how many people buy them or check them out of a library, or ranking research papers by how many other papers reference them. Hardly seems patent-worthy, because many might regard such innovation as "obvious".The other innovation was in business process -- basically, Google made it extremely easy for any business no matter how small, to become an internet advertiser. This was done through the dual mechanisms of "text only" ads (meaning anyone could create an add by typing a few lines) and credit card billing. A few other elements like letting the advertiser commit to tiny daily billing caps and small caps per click, completed the model which widely democratized internet advertising. If you could type, you had a web site and a credit card, you could become a buyer of web advertising. An important business model innovation at the time.But here's the reality: what made Google successful was not, repeat, NOT rocket science. They have since hired on loads of comp sci PhDs -- and even some real "rocket scientists" -- and have shown high engineering standards in a number of their implementations and renderings. But as far as the eye can see, there is no evidence that they are brilliant inventors. There is no "Thomas Edison" apparent in the mix.This is important, because if they are not brilliant inventors, they are likely also not going to be brilliant at anticipating highly inventive counter-moves which could be launched against them, and against their cash cow.There are other indications that Google's being popular does not mean that Google is a business genius. For example, Google's attempts at radio and TV advertising have shown a lack of inventive brilliance and a corresponding lack of success. Their email is good, but others have responded to close the gap on free storage and email searching. Google finance has not been a roaring success. The list goes on and on.Now Google, full of swagger, is putting out a platform-independent OS-like container designed to run its "apps", the core of which are aimed at Microsoft's cash cow, MS Office.Google should read the Economist's writings on "switching costs" and reflect upon what would be the average Google search engine user's "switching costs" to begin using the search engine of a competitor. Those "costs" are a mere mouse click, are they not?But Google says to itself "So what? We are so popular, nobody wants to switch from our search engine!" Yet.But now Google has given Microsoft a massive incentive to scratch its head raw figuring out a proper counter-move. And interestingly, there is one staring Microsoft right in the face. And no, it is not buying Yahoo. If Google keeps fueling Mr. Balmer's obsessions with what to do, my guess is Mr. Balmer eventually will figure it out an extremely elegant, outside-the-box counter-move, and Google will pay the price for having violated its "don't be evil" maxim.Looks like Mr. Brin likes playing Russian roulette.But the fact that his users' switching costs are vastly lower than Microsoft's means there may be considerably more live rounds in that revolver than Mr. Brin realizes. Spin, spin, spin.

Google's Chrome browser is interesting, but to call it an operating system in its own right is just plainly incorrect. Additionally, Chrome is less cutting-edge than Google would like you to think, since the Internet Explorer 8 Beta also incorporates many features (such as process-independent tabs) that Chrome boasts.

Additionally, with the exception of Chrome's javascript engine, google's effort was not created from scratch, but based off Webkit, the same rendering engine that powers Apple's own Safari browser.

That being said, I agree with the author's final conclusion. This is more an insurance policy than anything else. Google is letting it be known they can and will write their own browser software, so all others should stick to the standards, lest a "This page look strange to you? Click here to download Chrome!" link pops up on Google's home page...

P.S.Google's board member, John Doerr, is certainly well aware of Microsoft's "cut off their air supply" strategy which they executed against Netscape, a company which he invested in some years ago. He is also aware of the chilling effect Microsoft's "clone and extend" practices -- of so often rolling at least the first versions of cloned products into its main platform as "free" -- had on the entire PC based software industry, and how many innovative companies/products were not financed due to Microsoft's predatory patrol of the PC software landscape.This is arguably an "evil" practice which takes advantage of the rare phenomenon within the computer software and internet worlds of what I can fairly call "zero marginal cost of manufacture". I.e., you can afford to give away a clone product so as to murder a competitor if your manufacturing costs of each additional unit given away are effectively zero. This the case with PC software if you are already putting your OS on the PC, as well as many/most internet services. The only gamble is the few millions or at most low tens of millions needed to render the clone. And as most people in the software industry know, a tiny team of high-IQ developers can make an excellent functional clone very cost effectively. (In fact, having too many developers actually slows the process down considerably.)So now we see Google engaging in what appears to be exactly the same predatory practice. What we don't hear however is John Doerr complaining about how such behavior could and will have a chilling impact on innovation in the PC/Internet application space.Makes it very tempting for folks who spend most of their time turning their creative energies to new technology products, to instead use those same abilities to formulate and guide Microsoft to a firing solution with which they might even have a chance of decapitating the Google revenue engine. And how, pray tell, would Google ever get sympathy from the DOJ/antitrust if they are busy executing a mirror image firing solution against Microsoft?Pretty good developers, but some apparently not so brilliant chess players at Google.

I have been observing and thinking about the strategy of Google which is reflected through Google Docs and now Chrome for some time now. Clearly the thrust is to get into a position to "cut off Microsoft's air supply" by giving away an alternative to Microsoft's MS Office, just as Microsoft did the same to Netscape by simply giving away IE for free while Netscape relied upon actual license payments for its browser to survive.Google wishes to wrongly leverage its near-monopoly in search -- where it does make cash money for its services -- and give away an equivalent to Microsoft's MS Office -- where Microsoft makes its cash money via license fees.In thinking about this from Microsoft's perspective, and what I would do if I were Steve Balmer, I finally hit upon a strategic equivalent which Microsoft could indeed inflict upon Google. That is, a strategy whereby Microsoft could do to Google and then some, that which Google is now trying to do to Microsoft.If Google doesn't stop trying to be all things to all people -- and dissapating shareholder wealth while presumably also losing an ever-growing list of allies in the tech world in the process -- I think I just might take it upon myself to send this little business strategy recipe to Mr. Balmer. To my eyes, the folks at Google are not demonstrating themselves to be brilliant chess players at all with this taunting move against Microsoft. Google is completely missing the countermove which their own aggression gives Microsoft complete moral license to undertake.I am not a fan of Microsoft's practices which resulted in the destruction of Netscape, but nor am I a fan of companies who proclaim a "don't do evil" mantra, and who then turn around and engage in real evil against another -- even if that "other" is Microsoft.

Been running Chrome for a week and it's nice and easy. But it doesn't block ads like Firefox! But anything that supports open-source and innovation is good for consumers in the long run. Any appreciation I had left for Microsoft died when they hit me with Microsoft Word 2007. Saving files in .dox format, which no one else can open? Gee, thanks. I look forward to the day I can abandon Windows altogether.

I like Chrome; I also like Firefox. I usually avoid IE, but really curse those application developers who blindly write software that will only run on IE as a browser (eg, my local elector registration centre, and my credit card service bureau).

Chrome works fine, given time it will rival FF and IE for function...... but Chrome and the Google "cloud" vision will only succeed in producing minor harassment of Microsoft via the home/small office market. Unless and until Google finds some major corporations willing to trust all that data, and the insights it and user activity provide, to Google's cloud - Microsoft is safe, if unexciting.

Microsoft will lose this "war" with Google, for the simple reason that they do not make very good software!I am not a technology geek, but I have slowly, but surely, shifted away from using Microsoft bloatware that is slow to use, crashes all the time and simply do not do the job well. I have migrated to Google applications on the web and other well-made applications like Thunderbird. Actually, I now only use MS Word and Excel and will probably soon stop doing that also. Besides now having programs that actually work and do not crahs, I also can use them from pretty much any pc and I am not tied to a particular desktop. As an added bonus I do not have to keep paying Microsoft exorbitant amounts of money to buy/upgrade their poor products. You could say it's a win-win situation (not for the Microsoft shareholders, though)!

I've just installed this new browser.I am impressed by its simple style.Unfortunately, it is unable to reach some website while other browsers like IE is not.What' more, some software cann't work on its interface, Google still has a long way to go!

I am having problems with Chrome. For some inscrutable reason, it gives me the "unavailable web page" message on certain pages I know for sure are available because I can get to them via IE and Firefox. Another observation, not a problem necessarily, is that, unlike IE and Firefox, when you first load it up, it does not ask you if you want to make Chrome your default browser. Is this Google being “not evil,” playing nice with the competition, or is it Google not wanting to people make their buggy browser the default, magnifying the complaints? I love Google, but lately I worry they are a bit too taken with themselves, as if only “other” software companies make problem software. As we know, pride cometh before a fall. The world of search, advertising and fun-time videos is pretty innocuous stuff compared to the hard-as-nails field of enterprise software and deadly serious business applications. As anyone in the business knows, getting people to change how they work can an almost impossible task. And if the “new thing” isn’t miles and miles better, or it has hiccups, you better run for cover! Google does not have much experience asking the average Joe to pony-up hundreds or thousands of dollars for its software. How long can they run on free everything subsidized by ads? They better be careful and stick to their knitting. Otherwise the mighty Google might find itself a victim of its own hubris.

Google's Chrome is no doubt lean & mean. Sergey Brin has really played his cards well. While Chrome is simple, elegant and fast, I do not think there will be such a huge erosion in market of MS and IE as such. There is always an inertia in movement of the customer base in tech gadgets & products and this cannot hold true more for browser as a tool. It be some time before people get accustomed to the more efficient Chrome. This will essentially give MS to rethink its tactics. This war between Google and MS will result in multitudes of development in browser and related tools. We are ready for a sea-change in the way people think and perceive about the very tool called Browser. Let’s wait and watch this pre-emptive strategy war between these commendable organizations.

Anything that threatens Microsoft is cause to sing "Oh happy day!" I've only just innstalled Chrome and, of course, it's pretty basic compared with my well-settled Firefox. But it works and it works quickly. Based on my Firefox experience, I have no doubt it will grow rapidly into a sophisticated package.My only concern -- albeit major -- is that we may be jumping out of the (MS) fat into the (Google) fire. Hopefully, open source will protect us from the worst excesses of the Microsoft experience.

"Rock solid" it is not; I am using it for two days now. But one thing for sure, it kicks back of IE big time in terms of speed, especially with JAVA-heavy webpages. You have to wonder why IE just can not do it. And as argued, maybe Microsoft can learn a thing or two from Chrome.

I'm not in the inner circle of MS strategy, but I'm quite certain that the concept of "computing clouds" didn't arise until well after MS took down Netscape. My understanding of that conflict was much more along the lines of "the browser is the going to be the gateway to the internet, and we want to collect the tolls" This is what made AOL and Yahoo such hot property back then as well. The cloud concept is scary for MS now, but that's a pretty new development, and to my mind is almost more like a post hoc justification for why MS is afraid of google.

This is the logical direction for operating systems, albeit the first step. The stabilization and availability of internet access has opened the door for "cloud" operating environments. Imagine being able to access your computing needs from any device, including smart phones. Smart phones would not have to be so smart, nor would they require separate and distinct OS to facilitate paired down applications (i.e. MS Office apps). A seamless computing life, no matter where you are, accessible from nearly any device. Security is the last frontier to making this happen.

I think this is a good evolutionary development and look forward to trying Chrome. Networking regionally/globally is important for the human community to deal with the resource challenges we now face. Only with low cost communications can we work across distances and boundaries. As individuals and communities we demand this of the producers, understanding we too must produce to earn our daily bread for ourselves and our families.